Ruthless ~ 50!

~ 50 ~

Joe sprinted up to the test dungeon, only to find the guards in front of it being attacked by a swarm of low-level people. In a real way, the guards were more annoyed than anything else. They were holding interlocking shields, and thus blocking the entrance to the tunnel as solidly as if they were a steel door.

“Filthy enemies of humanity! Get out here!” One of the attackers shouted at the shields.

The guards were having none of it. “Oh, yeah, sure. How about I pop out so that you can attack me for no reason? Oh, even better, why don’t I attack you so you can go crying to your swarm about how ‘unfair’ I was being toward you?”

Two people worked together to throw a large rock at the guards, but beyond ringing the shield like a gong, the rock did nothing but fall to the ground. Joe had seen more than enough. “Hey! You don’t seem to understand your situation! You are trespassing during a war event, and attacking guards. If we send you to respawn, the only people that are going to be hurting is you! Leave them alone.”

Joe’s commanding tone caused the people to turn, startled that someone could sneak up on such a large group. One of them looked at Joe and snorted, “Shoo, freak. You don't even have clothes, we could wreck you.”

“Hey! He said ‘we’! He’s one of them!” Another shouted, getting the small mob riled up again.

“Don’t. Unlike those overly kind guards, I won’t hold back.” Joe warned as people charged at him. Joe sighed and held out his hands. “Enjoy respawn. Cone of Cold!”

Even though he had known that these people were at a low level, he wasn't prepared for the utter devastation his spell created. Most of the people here were under level five, and had never figured out how to train their characteristics independently of their level. In an instant, twenty people froze solid and died instantly.

Damage dealt: 140.25 cold damage x20. (Title effect of Tatum’s Chosen Legend reduces damage to characters of a lower level than you by 15%.)

Even with the damage reduced by almost twenty-five points, Joe dealt double their total health in damage. He assumed that most of them were between twelve and fifteen points of constitution; nowhere near enough to survive even a Beginner-ranked spell. They also had no magic resistance or life-saving items. Joe shook his head at their underpreparedness, and walked over to the now-relaxing guards. “Hey guys, don’t hold back. We are the Ruthless Defenders, we need to act like it. A deterrent only works if people know you will use it.”

“Is that a direct order?”

Joe paused. He wasn’t going to do that to them. “No, I’m not going to demand that you kill people. Use your judgement, of course. But don’t idly stand by while you are being attacked either. Pardon me, I need to get into the dungeon.”

He walked down the tunnel, and soon stood in the ‘choosing room’. Joe set the dungeon to ‘luck’ and walked over to the door. Tossing it open, he stepped inside… to total darkness. Joe took a second step, and found himself stepping out of the door into the dungeon area. 

Success! You have gained +5 luck! Three Karmic Luck has been consumed.

Joe shook as though he had been hit by a lightning bolt. There was no vision, or passing out, or anything noticeable as he passed the threshold, but he felt altered. Joe looked at his active effects and noticed that the final threshold debuff was gone, which was a happy extra bonus. He thought about the trial, and once again felt that there should really be more to it.

Walking toward the entrance of the tunnel, he kept waiting for it to get brighter. As he stepped out into the open air, the guards yelped, and one even took a swing at him. Joe dodged it easily enough, but looked at the two in confusion. “Guys, what the heck? I just went in there.”

The guard only recognized him after a long moment of panic, “What…? Joe? You’re alive? You were in there for practically the entire day!”

Looking at the sky, it was easy to see that they were telling the truth. There were only a few hours until sunset - at best - and Joe had likely been missing the entire battle so far. Without another word, Joe turned and started sprinting toward the guild; kicking up a huge dust plume as he empowered his extra-bouncy run with mana.

“Wait! Are we getting any guys here for the next shift?”

Joe only heard the faintest part of the shout coming at him from behind, but he didn't bother to figure out what they were saying. He tried to think of a way to not only help when he arrived, but to explain his absence. It was likely that anyone who had seen him running away now thought that he was a total coward, and that made his stomach churn. 

Joe was starting to get in range of the sounds of combat not five minutes later, but the cataclysmic booming of artillery spells wasn't exactly a great indicator of proximity. “Where in the abyss did they get siege mages?”

He kept going, and soon the smoke-covered battlefield was in view. Joe was approaching the back line of a huge horde that must have been at least a million strong. The people were packed so close together that there was no clear path forward. Looking around, he could see that the terrain was completely demolished; likely from so many people tromping through the area. The fields that the guild had been attempting to cultivate were now nothing more than mud pits, any food that had been ready to eat was gone, likely already gnawed down to nothing.

Trees in the area had been stripped of bark all the way to about seven feet off the ground, and Joe could see people chewing on it while they waited for their turn to throw themselves against the defended town. Wanting to test the levels of his targets, as well as what he could do from here, Joe got right up to the back line and cast Cone of Cold.

Damage dealt: 140.25 cold damage x41. (Title effect of Tatum’s Chosen Legend reduces damage to characters of a lower level than you by 15%.)

Forty-one people dropped by the time the spell ended an instant later, and Joe jumped away as people started to look around to see what had happened. He heard someone scream, “Oh my gosh! They’re dead! Why would someone attack us?”

“Which one of you sickos did that?”

“I think, oh man, oh man…” That voice devolved into hyperventilating a moment later.

Joe was completely thrown off by their reactions. They were attacking a town, didn't they think that the town would attack in return? The cries of outrage grew and grew, and soon people not involved were screaming and cursing at each other as they got shoved. Fists started to fly, and the mob in this area turned into a brawl. That lasted only a few minutes before the area took on a slight blue tinge, and everyone stopped cold. They got to their feet and stood patiently, otherwise not moving a muscle.

The phenomenon was explained a moment later, as a Jester walked out of the crowd and looked around. He fiddled with something, and the blue tint in the air vanished. People started blinking, then looked around as if they had forgotten something. A few started crying suddenly as they nursed broken jaws or bruised body parts. Joe recognized that effect, it was an apathy… something. A field that muted emotions and made people forget to protect themselves. He tried to keep an eye on the Jester, but the assassin vanished back into the crowd a moment later.

“Dangerous.” Joe muttered softly. It was time to act. He walked over and started making his way through the crowd, only making it a few dozen yards before he found something very unwelcome.

“Come along, make sure to set this as your bind point so that you come back if those jerks in there attack us! No one wants to have to walk all the way back here from Ardania!” There was a bard standing by some kind of a totem, and people were appearing next to it almost as a continuous stream. They all seemed cheerful, and Joe realized that it was because the bards were giving generous mugs of what he assumed was beer or ale to anyone that reappeared in the circle.

As much as he wanted to destroy that respawn point, he could see dozens more poking above the heads of the crowd off in the distance. All attacking right now would do was put him at risk, and make all the other areas better-defended. Joe pressed forward, his winding path through the crowd giving him a good look at many of the command structures that were active. 

“Don’t forget, this is all vengeance for Master Reggie!” A purple-robed man was shouting at a crowd of what Joe recognized as mages specializing in silencing spells. “Death to those who harbor the destroyer of the Mage’s College!”

There was a roar of approval from the mages, and Joe winced. Whoops. He had figured that cutting the head off the snake would kill it, but it seemed that this group was a cockroach: cutt off the head, and the body would run around for a while. Or… was that a chicken? Okay, cutting the head off the snake would kill it, but the fangs were still filled with a deadly poison. There. Joe felt better with his thoughts sorted.

Shortly after that run-in, Joe passed what seemed to be a group of engineers or… he paused to listen as one of them started speaking excitedly. “We finished the scan of the outer wall, I just sent off the specs of all weak points! Sappers are going to take it down, then we’ll get to work on the inner wall right away! Take a breather, everyone. I laid out estimated town maps, make sure to look them over.”

“The walls of the Architect’s Guild will rise again, stronger than before!” One of the younger members of the group shouted in glee. The others nodded appreciatively, and Joe decided that this group was too dangerous to simply walk away from. As the group started to cluster around a large round table that had clearly been pulled from a storage device, Joe steeled himself to act.

“I need to be ruthless now, if we are going to survive in the future.” Joe swallowed, his throat feeling like it was full of gravel. He took a few slow, hesitant steps as he steeled himself for action. He jumped, landing on the wooden table with a *thump* that made everyone's eyes jerk up to look at him. All of those eyes were filled with confusion at first, and just as a few started to turn into recognition, Joe acted.

“Dark Lightning Strike.”

Damage dealt: 165.75 dark damage x42. 

Damage dealt: 80.75 dark damage x118. 

(Title effect of Tatum’s Chosen Legend reduces damage to characters of a lower level than you by 15%.)

The nearly silent strike spread across the ground for twenty feet in a circle around Joe, killing a hundred and fifty people instantly. Joe knew that those confused eyes that had been looking up at him would haunt him for many nights to come. 

There was no respawn for the non-player characters in this world.